Whats a good keyword density?

[Alfie]

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Probably a "how long is a piece of string?" type question, but has anyone got any idea's as to what a good keyword density % on any given page is? Maybe its easier to say whats definitely a bad one?

All the best,

Alf

[Bud]

I'm sure there's a hundred and one answers to this!

Curious, I've just run a few analysis of some google 1st placings and, assuming you're referring to keyword density of body text, then from the small sample I looked at (6 various keywords & subjects) they seem to come out in a range of 0% to 6.4%.

[Alfie]

Hi Bud, yeah, i was looking at the body text - i did a similar test and came out with such varying results, it prompted me to ask the question. I guess there's the answer - there's a broad spectrum you can fit into.

I'd be interested what the threshold runs to until you start to run the risk of being spammy?

[ChristopherB]

i use 5-10% works well enough.

Don't go above 15% then it will get alerted from experience.

[Alfie]

Thanks Chris - have been running density checks on a lot of my pages, a majority fall between 5-10%, but I had a few at 13%, which i felt was a little bit too near the wire, so have reduced them a little!

[Bud]

Just found a 9% for a good keywood - so there's definately a wide variation.

[getvisible]

8%

It depends on the size of your page and what other content you've got that is the same on other pages in the site.

Just write naturally and think about all the variations that people will use.

[Geno_AMNavigator]

...whats definitely a bad one?

Bad/improper keyword density = keyword stuffing. Google defines keyword stuffing as keyword misusage, "filling pages with keywords results in a negative user experience" [source] It's all about that user experience. If you analyze keyword density of the websites that come up in the top 5 searches for such a competitive term as "real estate", you'll see that the percentage of keywords ranges from about 4.25% to 7.7%. I'd aim at not exceeding 6%, but keep the end user experience in mind at all times.

Geno

[gadget]

I work to 5% but have got away with nearer 10%.

However, you also have to consider the user .. do they really want to see the same word every ten words? If your keyword is actually 2/3 keywords in a single phrase then repeating that every 10 words/phrases would look awful.

[tbp]

Not encouraging this, but out of curiousity ran some tests on this at the end of last year, and Google seems much more lenient on keyword stuffing than they used to.

I think it's because it's become self policing in a way, people don't try it any more, because they automatically assume they`ll get penalised (as you used to), so google have quietly relaxed the rules on this.

Im not condoning keyword stuffing in any way, as its pointless as although you could get good results, your landing page won't convert as well if its just stuffed. It's more to people who have naturally got a page that is fairly high, say 15% and are really worried about it.

As the others have said, just write naturally and you won't have any problems. Whereas normally when people write they often use different words to describe the same thing, in order not to be repetitive, it won't hurt to use your keyword each time instead.

[nickclick]

Its actually 1-3% for exact matches to your keyword meta tag. Know this from experience of approx 150 optimisation projects.

[gadget]

Its actually 1-3% for exact matches to your keyword meta tag. Know this from experience of approx 150 optimisation projects.

I'm sure the theory books say that but I've just checked one of my pages for a 2 word phrase that ranks at 2/3 in each of the main SEs and it was 7.4%. Granted the on-page 'look and feel' was a bit poor.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not advising that level - I'm just saying you can get away with more than 5%.

[dawso77]

You're best off writing all content to be natural which will appeal to the reader, just make sure your structure of the page is targeted (Title, H1/2 tags etc) also that all internal links pointing to the page are all thematically aligned.

If you have a good off page strategy then that should alert the crawlers to what your site is all about.

Also try to think semantically rather than just at a specific keyword.

[matthew03]

My three main keyword phrase are between 4.68% and 8.1% and I am 1 to 3 on all the main SEs with this.

[XyOne.co.uk]

Between 8 & 12%. Also make sure that your page has at least 300-350 words of original content